As she got closer she saw she'd been wrong about the other figures. The fog slithering along the ground was messing with her perception. Or maybe she had a concussion from the car crash. But that was Steve, alright.
He waved his hand furiously for her to hurry up and come over.
She picked up her pace, partially for the feeling of deep unease that was returning. It was a feeling that was become unhappily familiar to her.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He shot out, his eyes flickering across the landscape, a spiked bat in his hand.
Wait, a spiked bat? Where the hell did he even get that? "What am I doing here,— what are you doing here?"
"Just stay close." He said.
"Diane get inside the bus!" Lucas called out. Since when did Steve Harrington hang out with kids?
Her head whipped around and then she looked up to see Lucas Sinclair on top of the faded public bus, with Max. She had a feeling Billy was not going to like that. But she wouldn't be telling him and she had a feeling Max wasn't either.
"Am I missing out on a creepy impromptu sleepover, or a seance of a bus driver or something?" Diane asked.
"Dee now is really not the time." Steve muttered.
Then Dustin peaked his head out of the door, "There's something happening here that really doesn't make sense and it's really not safe for you and you need to go home right now, Diane. We could all die."
Steve glanced back at her, mouth drawn in a serious line and eyes hardened with determination. She knew him long enough to know he didn't go out of his way to appease kids. If he was being serious now, so should she.
"Yeah, I think the time for leaving is gone." Steve muttered.
She stood a little distance behind Steve, but in front of him she could see a familiar shape. Her heart turned to ice. Why was it that demon-dog was unescapable. Everywhere she went, it was there.
"Steve you need to get back right now." She whispered.
"Can't." He replied, his voice curt and low as his focus was on the animal in front of him, bat raised.
Luminescent white tendrils curled around their ankles, breaking apart every time they moved forwards.
"No you don't understand—"
"I got eyes! Three o'clock! Three o'clock" Lucas yelled, voice cracking with nerves.
There was another slinking around the bus. It was much closer to her than Steve who was now adjacent to her, his feet nearly touching a pile of meat. She froze. There was more than one. The lab hadn't released one, they'd released an entire pack.
The demon-dogs mouth was partially open, resembling a black hole in the rough shape of a star. The dread was threatened to overwhelm her. There was nowhere for her to hide and she had nothing to defend herself with. The demon-dog took another slow step forwards, observing her.
Then it opened its mouth wider, making a high pitch clicking nose in response to a softer yelp emitting from the darkness. They were communicating with each other.
Then the horror inside of her was all-consuming as she stared at the animal. It felt like she was right back at the lab. If before had been swishing her hand across the surface to look at the rippling waves of an inky lake that sucked in all light, now she'd slipped into the water, half her body submerged into the cold depths of horror and disorientation.
If there was an invisible current in the universe that went through all living things, it was sweeping through her and the demon-dog in front of her. It was almost like she could feel the creature across from her on some deeper level she didn't understand.
Suddenly a damn burst within, and Diane was swept up in its current as she was pulled into a near trance as she cocked her head to the side, staring the animal. No, not animal. It felt like . . . a disease that infested the living. Still a natural entity, but one whose purpose who corruption and destruction.
She took a step forwards and the demon-dog mirrored her. This close she could see the creature in detail. The gnarled dark skin seemed to strain like tree roots straining to break the surface of the soil it resided in, which glistened like that of an amphibian. A ray of fine teeth swirled around its mouth coated with saliva.
The feeling that it wasn't going to harm her was innate. If their previous relationship had been predator and prey it had shifted so smoothly neither seemed to realise until it had already happened. Now they were neither predator nor prey. It felt like they were the same species - no, that was too personal.
It was as if she were a part of its pack; Diane was no longer viewed as a threat by the animal. The demon-dog felt subdued as it continued to look at her. Like an invisible thread was pulling at her, she began reaching out to it.
Then a rock bounced off it's head. With a hiss it looked upwards to see Max with still outstretched hand and Lucas's jaw dropping in shock. Dustin was yelling at Steve.
The link between them was severed and Diane inhaled sharply. The sound got the demon-dogs attention again and it whipped its head back to her. Then it lowered itself, ready to attack.
She dove to the side, rolling across the grass as the dog leapt past her. She scurried backwards and stumbled upwards. The demon-dog continued running, looping around to get Steve.
Steve dove over a car. The kids were screaming and her feet were already taking her to the bus, kicking up grass as she sprinted towards the door. Steve bashed one of the demon-dogs away before tearing into the ground and catching up to her, hot on her heels.
They leapt into the bus at nearly the same time, colliding with each other. Dustin kicked the door shut and the bus rocked with the weight of the demon-dog leaping into the door. They untangled their limbs, Diane heaving herself forwards.
Steve blockaded the door with an extra scrap sheet of metal. The bus rocked again and the kids shrieked. Then a paw swiped through a crack in the door, bending the metal frames.
"Go!" Diane yelled, shoving Dustin who was closest first. All of them scrambled towards the back of the bus while Steve grabbed his bat.
She hadn't felt it before but there was a spectacular headache blooming inside her head, its beating petals pressing against her skull.
The bus was rocking as they launched themselves against it. A window shattered and they shrieked as they ducked. Diane got the worst of it as the shards hit the side of her face and she imagined this is what tv static felt like personified. Then there was silence.
A loud thud caused the bus to sway, and their heads whipped up to track the ceiling. Plaster rained down as the creature moved slowly forwards, a large thump of each paw as it went. Diane began moving backwards, eyes trained above her as she moved, then she yanked Max back and she stumbled into Lucas and Dustin.
Her mind had jumped faster than the rest of them: the ceiling door was still open. Max screamed at the same time the demon-dog came into view. It's mouth opened like petals into a guttural roar. Saliva glistened amongst its rows of teeth. The curdling smell of rotting meat and atrophy nearly caused her to wretch.
Diane wrapped her arms around the kids and push them back harshly as she put as much distance between the demon-dog and them as the bus allowed. They all went stumbling; she fell and hit the back of her head on something sharp and decidedly metal.
Black dots swarmed her vision and for a moment her body wasn't working. She thought a small sound of shock came from her, but she wasn't sure. Steve stood above her and the kids with a baseball bat, waving it in front of the open window. If that thing was coming in, then it was going to get wrecked by Steve's bat first.
Her hand went to the back of her head, and she doubled over in pain. Oh yeah, something was wrong. Adrenaline was enough to animate her again and she forced herself to stand up, arm going back to form a loose barricade between demon-dog and the kids. Babysitting really was for life - and death situations.
Diane was protecting the kids and Steve was protecting all of them.
Then the creature froze before its head darted up towards the skyline, hearing something they couldn't. There was a pause, and then a snarl as if enraged at something that was happening. It leapt off the bus.
They began looking out the window, as Steve moved to the front of the bus and opened up the door, hopping off.
A few seconds later he was already back. "They're gone, leaving somewhere."
What the hell was wrong with her? She'd almost reached out and touched the demon-dog. The same one that'd tried to eat her multiple times. But she swears it'd become docile towards her.
Until Max had thrown a rock right in its face. Max and Billy might not be genetically related, but attack when in doubt seemed to be a family motto.
"You're late. For the second time this week." Dustin said.
Diane groaned and stuck her head between her legs as she squeezed her eyes harshly to try and dampen the pain radiating from the back of her skull. "Yeah, I know. I'm the worst."
"Steve's a better babysitter than you are, and he's Steve."
"Yeah— wait what's that supposed to mean?" Steve asked.
"It means you're more busy taming your hair than looking after kids." Diane said.
"And yet I still showed up on time."
"It's not showing up on time if you weren't even invited."
"I was actually invited."
"Is Ms. Henderson double booking babysitters? I always knew she didn't trust me after the missing Baby Ruth incident." Diane replied, beginning to raise her head with a wince.
"Dustin invited me. Good thing he did or these nerds would've been eaten by demodogs." Steve replied.
She looked at Dustin. "Tell your mom I'll be paying her instead tonight."
Dustin and Lucas exchanged a glance before their lips pulled into a frown.
"What?" Diane asked.
Lucas shook his head. "Nothing, it's just we have a friend whose nose also sort of bleeds."
"But differently." Dustin elaborated, not that that helped her understand anything better.
Steve shook his head.
Diane put a finger beneath her nose, and when she pulled back it was stained red. Oh, she was bleeding. But it looked like it'd stopped after only a few drops. Weird.
"She's acting really calm." Max finally pointed out. "Isn't that a sign of shock or something?"
"I've seen them before a couple of times." Diane admitted. "But I'm pretty sure I've been shocked since this afternoon."
Dustin looked at all of them, and then seemed to have a silent conversation with Lucas. Dustin's eyes widened and brows flashed upwards as he implored Lucas to silently reply to a proposition, but Lucas looked at Diane and then back to Dustin, shaking his head. Dustin speared him another look and then Lucas tossed his hands in the air, "Fine! Everyone seems to know anyway."
"How much do you know?" Dustin asked.
"Wait before we continue how do we know they aren't just making some elaborate plan to get us when our guard's down?" Max asked. "They seemed really smart."
"They're gone. Trust me." Diane said. She could feel it. Before the sense was only an all-consuming dread, but the more interaction she had with the demon-dogs the easier it was to hone in on it. The feeling was sharp as a whetted knife when the demon-dogs were close. Now it had faded like the fall of the tide.
"But how do you know?" Max insisted.
"I just do." Diane said with a sigh of exhaustion. "I thought there was only one. Hawkins National Laboratory sure didn't say anything about an entire pack." She said.
"Wait, you were inside? Did you see Will? Why were you there?" Dustin threw questions at her at a rapid fire speed.
Diane opened and then promptly shut her mouth. She was bound under a threatening NDA. "I can't tell you why I was there— and what do you mean did I see Will?! Why would he be in there?"
"We don't know." Lucas said.
"Diane are you okay?" Dustin asked before she could get her answer. "You look sort of cra—"
"Stressed." Steve said loudly, trying to drown out Dustin. "And Jesus, Dee. Is that a black eye?"
"I don't think it counts if the bruise is beneath the eye." She said half-heartedly.
Steve's brows knitted together in concern as he strode over to her. "What happened?"
"I don't really know where to begin, or where to even start." She answered.
"Maybe at the fact you were in the lab?" Steve suggested.
"You don't understand. I really can't." She stressed the words, hoping someone might pick up on the NDA so she didn't have to say it. But by the furrowing brows, none of them were. "Okay, how about we talk about what you know about those demodogs?"
"Well, they're from the Upside-Down." Lucas said.
"The upside-what?"
"No, the Upside-Down." Dustin corrected.
"Yeah, no, I got that. Sort of?"
"It's where the Shadow Monster is from. We thought if we got Dart, then we could understand its link to Will."
"Will is involved in all this?!"
"That's what we need to confirm." Dustin answered.
"And who's Dart?" Diane asked.
"Yeah, he's been raising one of those demodogs as his pet." Steve said with a cheerfully mocking tone. "And then it ate his real pet."
"Only for like a few days." Dustin defended.
"Is that why I wasn't allowed in the house earlier?" Diane asked.
"Maybe."
"Oh my god!" She threw her hands up in the air, then winced. This headache was killing her.
"It ate Mews?!" Lucas exclaimed. "You seriously kept him?" Lucas scowled at Dustin.
"Wait, is that Billy's jacket?" Max asked with narrowed eyes.
Diane glanced down. Oh, right. Well. This was going to be awkward to explain. "It's been a long night."
"Evidently." Max muttered, crossing arms. Lucas snickered, but Dustins eyes were widening in horror.
"Billy?" Dustin squeaked.
"I think we have a different idea of what happened."
Max raised a brow with an unspoken try me.
"Hold on, hold on. You were with Billy? Like Billy Hargrove?" Steve asked with hands on his hips, brows raised in disbelief.
"Is that really the most important thing right now." Diane snapped at him.
Diane knew she was in for a chaotic conversation when it involved Dustin and his friends. Staying on track when it came to them was a feat she'd yet to accomplish.
Lucas went back to attacking Dustin, who was fighting back over keeping a demodog as a pet. Max seemed to be at the epicentre of their fight though. Oh, young love in a time of demodogs and villainous laboratories.
Steve and Diane walked a little ways away to have their own hushed conversation. The kids weren't being quiet and every one of their words were overheard. Apparently they were also discussing a plan to go over to Will's house.
"I can't believe you let them do this." Diane said. The situation had become deadly, and it was late at night, none of them should be trying to set up traps in a junkyard. She knew she was late to babysitting, but she would never purposely help them out on dangerous escapades.
Steve narrowed his eyes as he put his hands on his hips. "So you came late to babysitting."
"Don't judge me, Steve Harrington." She shot back. "If anyone should be judged, it should be you. And I'm really exhausted right now. I've had an unexplainably exciting night that I wish I could forget."
"Is that what you'd call what you were doing with that grade A douche from California?"
"I don't care about him."
"Says the girl wearing his jacket."
"It's pretty ironic you seem to care so much about what I've been up to and with who. You left me at the party. You talk to me in rooms where it's only the two of us there. The only reason you talked with me yesterday night was because you wanted to get rid of your guilt. But you don't want to really be friends because you still want to be popular, and us hanging out will ruin that." She told him. "At least one of us can be upfront about our 'friendship'."
Steve opened his mouth and shut it. He didn't know how he'd forgotten about Diane's penchant for honesty, but it hit him as sharply as a whip like it did every time. "I'll find a megaphone and talk to you in the hallway with it tomorrow. Would that be better?"
"Sure."
"A thank-you Steve, would suffice." Steve replied, still waiting for acknowledgement on his own babysitting skills, not that Diane agreed with them completely.
With a heavy sigh she acknowledged the fact that they were still all alive, "Thanks." They all needed to go. If the Lab found out how many people had come across their escaped animals, she was sure everyone here would be tracked down and brought underground too. "We need to get the kids back home. We don't know if those dogs are coming back, and I don't think that bus will hold for round two."
"Yeah alright, let's get out of here." Steve said, swinging the bat loosing by his side.
"Max, you're supposed to be at home right now. Billy's worried." Diane said.
"My brother's not worried about me." Max replied quickly.
"He really is, and he's at home probably wondering where you are."
Max blanched as Diane's words finally hit her. "Oh crap I'm supposed to be home. He's going to kill me."
"No he won't, I'm coming with you." Diane said.
"You haven't seen him when he's angry." Max replied quietly.
"I have, trust me. I can handle it."
"Well we're not going home. We have places to be. This is serious." Dustin said resolutely.
"I'm serious, too. We're all going home." Diane said resolutely. "There has been enough curiosity tonight to kill a bag of cats. Including an actual cat."
Come. Lucas mouthed at Max.
She gave a sharp nod in response.
Dustins eyes narrowed. "Okay, listen. We'll all walk back. You're right."
"Thank you." Diane said, voice tinged with exasperation.
As they headed back down the hill Diane was hoping this was going to be absolutely the last time she'd have to face a pack of demodogs, or anything else this town apparently now had to offer.
A/N: For Non-Americans, Baby Ruth is a candy bar. No actual babies are missing.
This story is currently closely aligning with the original plot but after Part I it really begins diverging.
Chodofaggins: wow that's the best compliment I've ever received on this story so far (but don't tell anyone else).